It was April 2021 and the LAPD was facing sharp criticism over its handling of mass protests against police brutality. The Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles complaint accused officers of firing less-lethal weapons at demonstrators who posed no threat, among other abuses.
Smith said the assistant Los Angeles city attorney wanted his signature on a prewritten sworn declaration that described how LAPD officers had no choice but to use force against a volatile crowd hurling bottles and smoke bombs during a 2020 protest in Tujunga.
He refused to put his name on it.
Instead, eight months later, Smith filed his own lawsuit against the city, alleging he faced retaliation for trying to blow the whistle on a range of misconduct within the LAPD.
Smith and his attorneys declined to be interviewed by The Times, but evidence in his lawsuit offers a revealing look at the behind-the-scenes coordination — and friction — between LAPD officials and the city attorney’s office in defense of police use of force at protests.
Smith’s lawsuit says he felt pressured to give a misleading statement to cover up for reckless behavior by officers.
The captain’s claim, filed December 2021 in Los Angeles Superior Court, has taken on new significance with the city facing fresh litigation over LAPD crowd control tactics during recent protests against the Trump administration.
The 2020 protests led to a court order that limits how LAPD officers can use certain less-lethal weapons, including launchers that shoot hard-foam projectiles typically used to disable uncooperative suspects.
The city is still fighting to have those restrictions lifted, along with others put in place as a result of a separate lawsuit filed in June by press rights organizations.
Last month, City Atty. Heidi Feldstein Soto drew a rebuke from the City Council after she sought a temporary stay of the order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera.
Soto argued that the rules — which prohibit officers from targeting journalists and nonviolent protesters — are overly broad and impractical. Vera rejected Soto’s request, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking up the matter, with a hearing tentatively set for mid-November.
Smith said in his lawsuit that he wouldn’t put his name on the Tujunga declaration because he had reviewed evidence that showed officers flouting LAPD rules on beanbag shotguns, as well as launchers that fire 37mm and 40mm projectiles — roughly the size of mini soda cans — at over 200 mph.
Smith’s lawsuit said the launchers are intended to be “target specific,” or fired at individuals who pose a threat — not to disperse a crowd.
Smith said he raised alarms for months after the Tujunga protest, which occurred amid outrage over the police killings nationwide of Black and Latino people at the end of President Trump’s first term.
But it wasn’t until the city got sued, Smith’s complaint said, that incidents he flagged started to receive attention.
The city has denied the allegations in Smith’s lawsuit, saying in court filings that each LAPD use of force case was thoroughly investigated.
Smith’s lawsuit cites emails to senior LAPD officials that he says show efforts to sanitize the department’s handling of excessive force complaints from the protests.
An internal task force deemed most of the citizen complaints “unfounded.” Yet nearly two dozen of those cases were later reopened after Smith and a small team of officers found that the department’s review missed a litany of policy violations, his lawsuit says.
Smith also called out what he saw as “problematic bias” in the way what occurred at the Tujunga protest was reported up the chain of command.
His complaint describes a presentation given to then-Chief Michel Moore that downplayed the severity of the damage caused by less-lethal projectiles. According to Smith, the report omitted photos of “extensive injuries” suffered by one woman, who said in a lawsuit that she had to undergo plastic surgery after getting shot in the chest at close range with a beanbag round.
The LAPD stopped using bean-bag shotguns at protests after a state law banned the practice, but the department still allows officers to use the weapons in other situations, such as when subduing an uncooperative suspect.
Alan Skobin, a former police commissioner and a friend of Smith’s, told The Times he was in the room when Smith received a call in April 2021 from the city attorney’s office about the declaration he refused to sign.
The exchange appeared to turn tense, Skobin recalled, as Smith repeated that details contained in the document were a “lie.”
Skobin said he wondered whether the assistant city attorney went “back and examined the videotaped and all the other evidence.”
“That’s what I would hope would happen,” Skobin said.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles city attorney, Karen Richardson, provided The Times with a California State Bar report that said there was insufficient evidence to discipline the lawyer involved; the case was closed in June 2024.
Richardson declined further comment, citing Smith’s pending lawsuit.
According to Smith, other high-ranking LAPD officials went along with the misleading story that the officers in Tujunga acted in response to being overwhelmed by a hostile crowd.
Smith claims he faced retaliation for reporting a fellow captain who said police were justified in using force against a protester who held a placard turned sideways “so that the pole can be used as a weapon against officers.”
Body camera footage showed a different version of events, Smith said, with officers launching an unjustified assault on the man and others around him.
The colleague that Smith reported, German Hurtado, has since been promoted to deputy chief.
The city has denied the allegations in court filings. When reached for comment on Friday, Hurtado said he was limited in what he could say because the litigation is ongoing.
“From what I understand all that’s been investigated and it was unfounded,” he said, referencing Smith’s allegations.
“The lawsuit, I don’t know where it’s and I don’t know anything about it. No one’s talked to me. No one’s deposed me.”
Critics argue that the LAPD continues to violate rules that prohibit targeting journalists during demonstrations.
After a peaceful daytime “No Kings Day” protest downtown Oct. 18, about 100 to 200 people lingered outside downtown’s Metropolitan Detention Center after nightfall. Police declared an unlawful assembly and officers began firing 40mm projectiles.
Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter for the news site L.A. Taco who regularly covers demonstrations, was among those hit by the rounds.
In a video shared widely online, an LAPD officer can be heard justifying the incident by saying they were firing at “fake” journalists.
An LAPD spokesperson said the incident with Ray is under internal investigation and could offer no further comment.
Ray said it wasn’t the first time he’d been struck by less-lethal rounds at protests despite years of legislation and court orders.
“It’s pretty discouraging that stuff like this keeps happening,” he said.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell defended the department at the Police Commission’s weekly meeting Tuesday, saying the “No Kings” protesters who remained downtown after dark were shining lasers at officers, and throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks.
Asked about the incident involving Ray, the chief said he didn’t want to comment about it publicly, but would do so “offline” — drawing jeers from some in the audience who demanded an explanation.
McDonnell told the commission that he supported the city’s efforts to lift the court’s injunction. Easing the restrictions, he said, would “allow our officers to have access to less-lethal force options so that we don’t have to escalate beyond that.”
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.
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